Drowning in a Sea of Me. In today's episode I share a little bit about self-obsession, what that's done for me, how it's impacted me and what that really looks like, because it's an easy phrase, it's an easy statement to say or concept to throw out there self-obsession what exactly does that look like? And so in my life I've shared some examples of how self-obsession has really manifested itself and sometimes still continues to plague me. So I hope you get some benefit out of today. Hi, this is Amjad, a simple, beautifully broken man living in a complex world. Join me as I navigate the dark and bright spots of life, sharing vulnerably and reflecting deeply along the way. May you find some benefit here. That is through me, not from me. I must warn you to enter at your own risk, for in this room my humanity is showing. Welcome, my fellow humans, to episode 47 of my Humanity is Showing.
Amjed:And for those of you who were looking for apologies for not posting last week, the previous episode. I was pretty sick and then I just anyway, I'm not going to give my excuses, but yeah, I'm feeling much better now. I still have a little bit of a cough, so I'm not sure if I'm going to cough during this episode, but definitely doing better than I was the last couple of weeks, so just really grateful to be back and back online. So for today's episode, I it's a topic that's been coming up a lot lately in my conversations with others, as I've been sharing my journey, and so I thought it would be good to share here as well. I can't remember if I've talked about it before or what context, but I thought I could go into a little bit more detail, even if I've mentioned it before, and that is this idea of self-obsession.
Amjed:I did not realize that I was self-obsessed. I spent most of my life believing that I was a very humble person and I prided myself on my humility, and my definition of humility for most of my life was that I thought very low of myself, very little of myself, and someone once said that that is humiliation, not humility. And that's exactly what I did for decades Lots and lots and lots of humiliation, lots of self-deprecation and just self-loathing, lots of abuse. And I often say, if I treated anyone else the way I treated myself, or have treated myself most of my life, I would spend many, many years in jail because I was very abusive, very, very abusive to myself and I considered it, I justified it under the guys or context of humility. I thought this is me being humble. Look, I don't want to get a big head and I don't want to. And I was a hard parent and head teacher because have this overinflated ego that thinks that I'm so wonderful.
Amjed:But in reality, what I was doing actually had someone tell me one time this is pride in reverse, and I've shared about that before, in February of 2007,. That was the sentence or the discussion that turned things around, when this person told me that I'm a very arrogant person and I thought what, how can I be arrogant? Let me listen to me. I'm telling you how much I despise myself and how low I am and how horrible I am. How is that arrogant? And he said you're like a little ant that has climbed into the throne of God and appointed yourself as judge, jury and executioner on yourself, and he's like that's pretty arrogant to take on that level of authority yourself. And he said this is pride in reverse. It's a different form of pride. And I did not. It took me. That hit me really hard, but it still took me a while to really grasp what he was saying and what that meant.
Amjed:So for me, when I say self-obsession, that is any time that I am obsessively thinking about myself. Another way that I put it is I say that when my attention has turned inward rather than outward, when I'm focused on myself rather than how I can be of use to others and be helpful to others, I self-destruct. I do not do well with that. I know maybe some people handle that with grace and are fine to reflect inward and to spend a lot of time focused on themselves. I do not do well with that, and maybe it's because of the way I do reflect a lot now in this kind of new phase of my life. In the last several years, I do a lot of meditation and reflection and pause to think about things, but my energy is usually focused on how, what can I change about myself that would make me of better use to others, which is a slightly different approach. So what does this look like? And I jotted this down a few days ago because I was telling somebody about it and I said let me just write it down so I'll remember whenever I'm sharing with someone about what I mean when I say self-obsessed.
Amjed:And for me, self-obsession usually falls into a few different categories. The first category is what will happen to me. What will happen to me? That's the first category of self-obsession. Will I be successful on this project that I'm working on? When I was younger it was. Will I ever graduate from this degree and will I be successful once I graduate Well, they graduate successfully. Will I have a good GPA and get a good job lined up afterwards? Will I ever get married? Once I got married, will we ever have kids? Family love me? Will they accept me? What is gonna happen to me? Will I die alone and forgotten and nobody shows up to my funeral? Will I? You know, will I, will I, will I. And it's all this, what will happen to me?
Amjed:Conversation or thoughts, and this is one form of self-possession for me. As I get fixated on this idea of my future and as I heard one time in a beautiful talk where he said that every time I wander off into the future, I am, I drown, I become overwhelmed with fear, and every time I wander off into the past, I become overwhelmed by resentment. And my God, my higher power, my God, my whatever you wanna call it for me exists in the present and that's where I'm best, that's where I'm in best shape is when I stay in the present. And every time I go into the future or the past, it's like he's standing there saying have a nice trip, I'll see you when you get back. So this, what will happen to me is a like a friend of mine calls it future tripping. You know, it's me wandering off to the future. It's like that Mark Twain quote that says I have survived many horrible things, some of which actually happened. That's the future part. So what will happen to me?
Amjed:That's the first category of self-obsession. The second category of self-obsession for me is I deserve this, I deserve a break, I deserve someone to cut me some slack, I deserve to be treated better, I deserve to fill in the blank. And this is another way where you know, I know when I say I deserve, it's this one and the next one. So I'll go ahead and mention the next one, cause they kind of go hand in hand a little bit. The next one is look at how I'm treated, look at the way people are treating me. Oh, I can't believe they said that to me, or you know, they didn't include me in that, or how. How dare they overlook me?
Amjed:And in both of these cases, the I deserve and the how I'm treated. Both of these support a victim trap. So for me, it puts me in the position of the victim. I am now the victim because I'm not getting what I deserve and I'm being treated poorly. And in either case, you know, when I get into this victim mode, that's a form of self-obsession. For me, it means my attention is once again pointed inward. So, instead of thinking about how I can be useful, I'm thinking about how the world is treating me, how I'm being treated, and I'm thinking about what, how I should be treated. So it's.
Amjed:I guess that's the two halves of this equation, these two bullets that I'm mentioning. One is how I'm being treated and the other is how I should be treated, what I should get, what I deserve, and so there's the. You know, when I'm the way I'm being treated and when I'm not getting, and it's all about me, it's all about self-focus. And you know, in the cases like in the self-obsession mode, I cannot be humble, because for me, humility is not about today, it's not about beating myself up and making you know, like rubbing my face into the ground and making myself out to be nothing. For me, humility is about. You know, there's, there's that famous quote that says it's not about thinking less of myself, but thinking about myself less. So spending less time thinking about myself and more time thinking about others, versus thinking less of myself and belittling myself and disrespecting myself and abusing myself.
Amjed:This other one, this is another one. It also falls into the victim thing. These, all three of these go together for me. This third one or this fourth one here, but the third in this category, this grouping, is I have terrible luck and unfortunately, I say this all the time, makes my family really upset.
Amjed:But I, you know, I say like life sucks, I have such bad luck. There's no point in me doing fill in the blank because I, you know I'm not going to get it anyway because I have such bad luck. As a matter of fact, that's one of the reasons why I have historically had such a hard time flying, because I get on a plane and I'm like I have such bad luck. I have just now put all these people on this plane in jeopardy. I've jeopardized everyone's life on this plane because I have such bad luck, which, you know, my family gets upset because they say that that does not acknowledge that I have such bad luck, knowledge, a lot, all the good things that have happened for me, it's I'm just focused on the things that didn't go my way, that didn't go my way, and so therefore, I quote unquote have bad luck, but there's so many ways that I could say I have really good luck, and but I don't look at that, I don't focus on that, I fixate on the bad luck and you know it's like oh, I have such bad luck, and once again that also puts me in that victim mode.
Amjed:You know it's, I'm being treated poorly by the people around me, I'm not getting the things I deserve, and I'm being treated badly by fate or by God, in that you know, I have this like horrible luck. So this is so. If I were to lump all these together, I would say like this all all these three fall into the category of I'm a victim, I'm a poor victim of injustice, and so. So that kind of puts us at two categories so far. So there's the what will happen to me, the future part, and then there's the past part, which is you know, look at me, I'm such I have, I'm such a victim here. I'm being abused by the universe, I'm being abused by other people. It's just everything around me is abusing me, when I don't realize that I'm the one who's abusing myself the most.
Amjed:So the next category I'm going to do it slightly out of order, but the next one for me is that when I start thinking about, I start justifying why I shouldn't be the victim or why I should get these things or why I should be deserved this, and it's because I start over-inflating my, my value and the way I do that is usually that, oh man, I am really good at this, I'm really talented at, or I I mean, how dare they treat me that way? I'm the best employee they have, or I'm the best father, husband, brother, son that these people could have wished for, and look at how they're treating me. So it's a kind of a self-justification thing that I go through. Where I start thinking about, I start over-exaggerating how well I do things or how good I am at things or whatever that is.
Amjed:And I know I just talked about how much I abuse myself, but in reality what's happening inside of me at any given moment is a civil war. There's part of my brain that's trying to boost me up, that's trying to tell me you're good, but is overdoing it. And then the other part of my brain is like oh no, that's not true. You're horrible, you're awful, you're the worst. So I go from living on these two extremes at the same time. It's a civil war going on inside my head that says and that's the last category I was gonna bring up which this self-obsession, this pride and reverse of me telling myself how horrible and terrible and awful I am, and the self-abuse that I do, and so it's not balanced in any way. There's this literal civil war going on inside of my head, one part trying to convince me that I'm the best and the other part trying to convince me that I'm the worst.
Amjed:And one way in that part in particular, one way that I have started to move past that in the last several years, is very simple phrase that I'm an average human being, no better or no worse than anyone else. That when you average us all out, we all fall kind of somewhere in the middle. We're good at some things and we're not so good at other things, and it's okay. It's what makes us human. I'm here showing my humanity, and that's the reality of my humanity is that I'm not the best and I'm not the worst. I'm an all around decent person who's trying to become better, who has flaws, who has strengths, who you know. It all kind of balances itself out. At times I do things well and at other times I do the exact same thing, not so well, and it's all okay. It's all okay.
Amjed:And so that you know, when I talk about self obsession, it's this idea that I am just spending all my time and energy focused inward and it's like a self like what is that? Short circuit or you know, self-destruction in a way. But it's like I'm taking a power source and plugging it back into itself and then it's short circuiting and like there's all kinds of sparks and explosion and flames happening because I don't do well when I focus inward, as I mentioned earlier. So the counter to that is for me and this is a prayer of mine that I say God, help me to keep my attention focused outward today. Help me look at how I can be of service in this world, rather than how the world is treating me or how I think I should be or what is going to happen to me. And so with that, as my attention starts to focus outward, and then, you know, I kind of I in that I surrender my obsession with my own fate and I hand that off to my higher power. Say God, you, you take over my future. You take over my past. You take over whether I'm good or bad. Like I'm not gonna worry about all that, I'm just gonna focus my energy on being useful and See where the chips fall and what happens in that.
Amjed:When I do that is I feel like I become a better version of myself. I Start to value myself more. I start to respect myself more In a balanced way. I'm able to see my flaws, acknowledge them and ask for assistance from God to like work on them and To improve in those areas Without all the abuse. Without all the abuse and in a in a much more balanced way.
Amjed:And I and it's I'm sometimes surprised at how I'm being I'm able to be used for good. I'm being, I'm able to be used for good when I let go of my self-obsession, when I start focusing my energy and attention outward. I believe that that causes me to be of better service to others, to be of Just a better person in general. And I things, I do things that I didn't know I was capable of, that I don't take credit for. Hence my prayer at the beginning of this that says I asked that what you find here is through me, not from me, because I find that when I channel the positive energy and the and I channel my higher power, it's just. I even surprised myself sometimes at what he's able to do with me, how he's able to use me, as opposed to when I Don't do that, when I'm trying to control the outcome, when I'm trying to like be you know, like show people how good I am, and you know just all self. And so the way I refer to this is in that what I in the title drowning in a sea of me.
Amjed:I Didn't realize that I spent most of my life suffocating in this self-obsessions and, in particular, the one that was most toxic for me was self-loathing, because I started building a case against myself. I had this resentment against myself that I mean, it was so huge it consumed me. And I met this wise old man one time and he looked at me and I told him a little bit of my story and he he looked at me and he said until you comprehend forgiveness, you will not see the path forward. And I didn't know what he was talking about. And then he gave me this little article that he had written and it was all about forgiving Myself and forgiving others. And so I spent several months Just reading that article over and over and really focusing on how can I forgive myself for my you know mistakes, for the things that I've done. It's that case to tell my kids all the time, you know they would break something and they would get really upset and the very first question would be did you do on a purpose? Which a couple, couple episodes I had, one of those where I dropped some food and that's the first question my wife asked me is like, did you do it on purpose? And I was so upset I said yes, but in reality I didn't. It wasn't on purpose, and that you know. Can I give myself some of that grace.
Amjed:So when I'm in that mode of self-loathing, that's when I become angry and irritable, and I believe that any anger that I've experienced in my life is always born in self-loathing. I start hating myself and Then out of that comes it just the volcano kind of builds and then I get angry Angry at other drivers, angry at my family, angry at myself, angry at the world. I just become angry. But in reality when I'm angry at is I'm angry, I'm really angry at my own failure, and that is very toxic for me, and so I focus a lot of that energy on being humble, being present and being of service, and so that I think that wraps it up. I mean, there's probably more to be said about this and maybe in a future episode it might come to me or come back, but bottom line is, I'm drowning in a sea of me and I'm the one pressing my head into the water, I'm the one pushing my head down into the water and I'm suffocating, and I'm drowning in all of this self-obsession and I'm the one who has to let go and release my hand so I can come up for air. It's all self-inflicted. So with that, I'm gonna switch over to the random message of the day. Okay, my little fortune cookie bucket, mix it up, let's see if I can find a good one. It'll be funny. If it's something related to this, all right, let's see what it is.
Amjed:The one who can take advice is sometimes superior to those who give it. That's interesting that my immediate thought is that's another one of the areas that I carry some shame about is I feel like I'm the king of unsolicited advice. I'll see someone or something and I'll just start. I'm like, oh, can I share with you something? And before they can even answer, I'm telling them something about my story and it's like, ah. And then afterwards I just feel so bad because I'm like what if they weren't even interested in that? What if they weren't even interested in hearing all that blah, blah, blah that I just did?
Amjed:I know one time someone that I grew up with almost like a younger brother, some family friends, and he graduated and I just started. We're at the graduation party and I'm giving him all this advice about life and job and everything and did not realize that I didn't pay attention. I think I realized, but I didn't pay attention to the fact that he had been playing basketball with some friends at this party and I think he broke his finger or sprained his hand really bad or something happened like he injured his hand really bad, and he's standing there with an ice pack on his hand the whole time. I'm going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah until finally he said I really need to go change this ice pack out. And I looked out and there's like a puddle of water on the floor where he was standing and I could tell he was in pain and the timing was just terrible terrible for me to solicit all this advice.
Amjed:So anyway, I know that's not really what the quote is talking about. It sounds like what it's talking about is that humility, just to say, okay, I hear you and that is. I'm willing to accept that and that in a lot of ways, that in and of itself, that humility is far greater than the person maybe even giving the advice. And it says sometimes so you know, because it may be that the one giving advice is a little got, a little bit of that holier than thou attitude of, oh yeah, let me tell you, because I know better than you. So in recent years, what I've really focused on is not giving advice, and I hope and pray that this podcast doesn't ever come across as advice.
Amjed:What I'm doing is just sharing. I'm sharing my story and if it resonates for someone and you find something of benefit in it, great, and if it doesn't, it's okay. I was actually just thinking about that earlier. I could see someone listening to this, especially all the God talk, and being like, well, I don't believe in God and you keep calling him he and I don't know if he's a he or a she or a they or not, nothing, and it's fine. That's fine. If my story doesn't resonate, it's okay. That's.
Amjed:All I have to share is my story. I don't have advice, I don't have guidance, because advice assumes that I know what's best for you and I'm telling you that I don't know what's best for anyone. Heck, I don't even know what's best for me most days. I mean, I'm just trying to make it and these are some things that have helped me and this is some of the journey of things that I've gone through, and that's all I'm sharing. And for the one who finds benefit in it and takes it and follows it, then you may be in far better shape than me, and I think that's what I'm getting out of this quote. So with that I will wrap it up. Thanks for letting me share and I hope you found something here, a benefit. If you did, I hope you keep coming back. Thanks, music.